California startup NDB, Inc. announces breakthrough in new battery technology

[trag1c]

Betavoltaics have been in use for a decade or two at this point. If you actually look into the claims NDB is making you will find out its nothing but a load of bullshit. The harvester (you can't actually call it a battery because it harvests charge and does not store it.) it self is only capable of producing a 100mW which puts it worse off than even a AAA. Theres only very few applications that this so called battery can be utilized because almost nothing will run off of micro watts. It will never replace RTG's either because plutonium produces way more power per gram than this thing ever will. 

EEVBlog and Thunderfoot have both put on video's completely smashing the claims made by this company. 

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, trag1c said:

Betavoltaics have been in use for a decade or two at this point. If you actually look into the claims NDB is making you will find out its nothing but a load of bullshit. The harvester (you can't actually call it a battery because it harvests charge and does not store it.) it self is only capable of producing a 100mW which puts it worse off than even a AAA. Theres only very few applications that this so called battery can be utilized because almost nothing will run off of micro watts. It will never replace RTG's either because plutonium produces way more power per gram than this thing ever will. 

EEVBlog and Thunderfoot have both put on video's completely smashing the claims made by this company. 

Without disagreeing with any of that a jump in efficiency fron15% to 40% while using a more available material is interesting though.   Tragedy the marketing group ran too far with it. Marketing is famous for doing that kind of thing though. 

[CarlBar]

20 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Ah.  So the statement about classification had no connection to the rest of the post which was about thorium, or to my statement, which was about thorium. And your use of the first paragraph in the second was what?

 

re:Dorchester armor packs

  Reveal hidden contents

  I’ve never heard of em.  Let’s see what the internet says: top hit is “chobham armor” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobham_armour

Just running on what I have heard about chobham armor without reading anything, it’s a multilayered material with very hard materials as well as very soft ones including aluminum and rubber. There are also air pockets. It’s all very deliberately designed. The M1 tank was designed to use it, as well as a bunch of other systems.  The point is to absorb and spread the blow of a munition too keep it from penetrating, It works extremely well against various kinds of AP munitions, though it cannot protect against ultra high velocity FSDUAP darts.  They’re so extremely difficult to make or use though that it’s considered a non-problem.  It’s considered superior to reactive armor though I understand lately reactive armor has been used on top of it. 

 

So General public information lacking in specifics.  Just like the stuff I said about thorium.    

 

Yes i was just making the point that "Muh Classified" isn't actually a bad argument somtimes. Sorry if that was unclear.

 

Also for reference  Dorchester is the successor to Chobham. Chobham is a 1st generation composite and the direct predecessor in UK service to Dorchester, Dorchester is the second generation replacement for Chobham. How it differs from Chobham is unknown.

 

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Without disagreeing with any of that a jump in efficiency fron15% to 40% while using a more available material is interesting though.   Tragedy the marketing group ran too far with it. Marketing is famous for doing that kind of thing though. 

 

Yeah, marketing tends to screw up so many things, (it does good in some scenario's too, but this isn't one of them alas).

[StDragon]

28 minutes ago, trag1c said:

..capable of producing a 100mW which puts it worse off than even a AAA. Theres only very few applications that this so called battery can be utilized because almost nothing will run off of micro watts.

At the moment, the only long-term solution for data archival is tape. HDDs can be used, but there's a possibly off some other mechanical failure when attempting to turn it on after 50+ years of inactive use.

 

NAND flash will typically suffer some form of bit-rot after being discharged within a span of 12 months, give or take. However, if this power solution supply a charge to the NAND flash, it might be worthwhile to store data on them for archival shelving.

[trag1c]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Without disagreeing with any of that a jump in efficiency fron15% to 40% while using a more available material is interesting though.   Tragedy the marketing group ran too far with it. Marketing is famous for doing that kind of thing though. 

 

7 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

Yeah, marketing tends to screw up so many things, (it does good in some scenario's too, but this isn't one of them alas).

Ya I have zero doubt that their product works but when you start making claims for an existing technology that we know is not capable of doing what is claimed I just get really pissed off. 

[trag1c]

8 minutes ago, StDragon said:

NAND flash will typically suffer some form of bit-rot after being discharged within a span of 12 months, give or take. However, if this power solution supply a charge to the NAND flash, it might be worthwhile to store data on them for archival shelving.

My whole point is that they've tried making this into some brand new earth shattering technology when we have been using it for like 15 years or so and we know for a fact that their claims are bullshit because these Betavoltaics are only good for nano to microwatt loads. I would have to look at some datasheets but I think for an entire SSD you might be overdrawing what these chips will produce.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Well, time to re-charge my batteries...

Spoiler

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, StDragon said:

At the moment, the only long-term solution for data archival is tape. HDDs can be used, but there's a possibly off some other mechanical failure when attempting to turn it on after 50+ years of inactive use.

 

NAND flash will typically suffer some form of bit-rot after being discharged within a span of 12 months, give or take. However, if this power solution supply a charge to the NAND flash, it might be worthwhile to store data on them for archival shelving.

This has potentially greater application than the smoke alarm idea.  Still not a car, but it doesn’t have to be a car.  Cost becomes a factor if one of this chips can provide enough power to prevent ssd but rot and can be done for under,oh I don’t know how much.. an hundred bucks for a 2tb ssd? It might have some commercial viability now.  Tape is cheap but it slow if you actually want the data. 

[CarlBar]

7 minutes ago, trag1c said:

My whole point is that they've tried making this into some brand new earth shattering technology when we have been using it for like 15 years or so and we know for a fact that their claims are bullshit because these Betavoltaics are only good for nano to microwatt loads. I would have to look at some datasheets but I think for an entire SSD you might be overdrawing what these chips will produce.

 

Bear in mind if everything else is unchanged the claimed efficiency jump amounts to just under a 3 fold increase in energy density, thats quite a big improvement over what we've been using for the last 15 years. It's certainly worth crowing about, it just isn't going to be powering major devices in the intimidate future like marketing is claiming.

[Bombastinator]

For those interested in what the heck a betavoltaic is and what it is used for here’s a publication by the US atomic energy commission.  Various papers starting in 1976 and continuing to 2018

https://www.science.gov/topicpages/b/betavoltaic+energy+conversion
 

they seem to be called alternately energy harvesters and nuclear batteries though they appear to refer to the same thing. 
 

There is apparently also a competing Russian design which has a lot of the same feature descriptions.  The Russian one uses nickel(?) but the advancement seems to be the use of a double sided system which makes everything better (which users of floppy disks already knew) 

https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/miniature-nuclear-battery-lasts-20-years

[RejZoR]

Ah the battery news. I always take them with billion grains of salt. One at a time.